When Benji and Kevin were young, they snuck into the coach’s room and went through David’s bag. They were only children; they didn’t even know what they were looking for, they just wanted to know more about the coach they idolized. When David found them they were sitting there bemused, playing with his watch, until Kevin managed to drop it on the concrete floor and broke the glass. David rushed in and lost his temper in a flash; he hardly ever did that, but this time he shouted at them until the walls of the rink shook: “That was my DAD’S watch, you little brats!”
The words caught in his throat when he saw the look in the boys’ eyes. His guilt about that has never really left him. They never talked about it afterward, but David instigated a ritual, just between him and the boys. Every so often, sometimes only once during an entire season, when one of them had had an exceptional game, something way beyond the usual, when they showed loyalty and courage, he would give the boy his watch, and the boy could wear it until the next game. No one knew about this little contest except Benji and Kevin, but for that single week in any one year when one of them succeeded, he was immortal in the eyes of the other boy. Everything seemed bigger in those seven days, even time itself.
David doesn’t remember when it stopped. The boys grew out of it, he forgot about it. He still wears the watch every day, but he doubts either of the boys even remembers it now.
They grew up so fast. Everything changed so quickly. All the best players in the junior team have called David now, and they all want to play for him in Hed. He’s going to build a good A-team over there, the A-team he’s always wanted to build. They’re going to have Kevin, Filip, and Lyt, with a collective of loyal players around them. Strong sponsors, and the backing of the council—they’ll be able to build something big. There’s only one piece missing. And that boy is standing out there on the ice now, with his lips pressed against another boy’s. David feels like he’s been kicked in the gut.
His dad’s watch glints in the light of a solitary streetlight when he turns his back on them and disappears without being seen. He can’t look Benji in the eye. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to do that again.
All those hours in the locker room that a player and a coach spend together, all the nights travelling to and from tournaments and away games, what are they worth? All the laughter and all the jokes, filthier and filthier the longer the trips were, David has always felt that the team was strengthened by them. Sometimes the jokes were about blondes, sometimes they were about people from Hed, sometimes they were about gays. They all laughed. They looked at each other and they laughed out loud. They were a team, they trusted each other, they had no secrets. Yet even so, one of them did. The last one anyone could have guessed. It’s a betrayal.
*
Jeanette hangs a sandbag from the ceiling and spreads a soft mat on the floor of the outbuilding as evening falls. Adri helps her, grunting and reluctant. When they’re done, Adri walks through the forest, down into town, to the row houses. It’s late, so when Sune opens the door and sees her, he can’t help exclaiming: “Has something happened to Benji?”
Adri shakes her head impatiently, and asks instead:
“What do you have to do to set up a hockey team?”
Confused, Sune scratches his stomach. Clears his throat.
“Well . . . it’s not that hard, you just set it up. There’s always young lads who want to play hockey.”
“What about girls?”
Sune frowns several times. His breath wheezes out of his heavy frame.
“There’s a girls’ team in Hed.”
“We’re not from Hed,” Adri replies.
He can’t help smiling at that, but mutters:
“It’s probably not the right time for a girls’ team in Beartown. We’ve got enough problems as it is right now.”
Adri folds her arms.
“I’ve got a friend, Jeanette; she’s a teacher at the school. She wants to set up a martial arts club in one of my outbuildings.”
Sune’s lips seem to approach the strange words tentatively.
“Martial. Arts?”
“Yes, martial arts. She’s good. Used to compete professionally. The kids are going to love her.”
Sune is scratching his stomach with both hands now. Trying to get his head around what appears to be happening.
“But . . . martial arts? This is hardly a martial arts town. This is a . . .”
Adri has already started to walk away. The puppy follows her. Sune follows the pair of them, swearing and muttering.
*
When David was little, his dad was an invincible superhero. Dads usually are. He wonders if he himself is going to be one to his child. His dad taught him to skate, patiently and gently. He never got into fights. David knew that other dads sometimes did, but never his. His dad read stories and sang lullabies, didn’t shout when his son wet himself in the supermarket, didn’t shout when he broke a window with a ball. His dad was a big man in daily life, and a giant on the ice, ruthless and invulnerable. “A real man!” the coaches always used to say, admiringly. David would stand by the boards and soak up every compliment, as if they were aimed at him. His dad did everything for a reason, never hesitated, whether in hockey or in his opinions. “You can be whatever you like, as long as you’re not gay,” he used to laugh. But sometimes, at the kitchen table, he used to get more serious: “Homosexuality is a weapon of mass destruction, David, remember that. It’s not natural. If everyone turns gay, mankind will be wiped out in a generation.” The years passed, and as an old man he used to watch the news and shout: “It’s not a sexual orientation, it’s a trend! And they’re supposed to be an oppressed minority? They’ve got their own PARADE! How oppressed does that make them?” When he’d been drinking he used to form a circle with the fingers and thumb of one hand, then insert the index finger of the other hand into them. “This works, David!” Then he would put the tips of his two index fingers together: “But this doesn’t!”
Whenever anything, anything at all, was really bad, it was “gay.” When something didn’t work, it was “gay.” It was more than just a concept, it was an adverb, an adjective, a grammatical weapon.
David drives back to Beartown. Sits in the car crying with anger. He’s ashamed. He’s disgusted. At himself. He’s spent his whole life in hockey training a boy, has loved him like a son, been loved in return like a father. There’s no more loyal player than Benji. No one whose heart is bigger than his. How many times has David hugged number sixteen after a game and told him, “You’re the bravest bastard I know, Benji. The bravest bastard I know.”
And after all those hours in the locker room, all those nights on the team bus, all the conversations and all the jokes and the blood, sweat, and tears, the boy didn’t dare tell his coach his biggest secret.
That’s betrayal. David knows it’s a huge betrayal. There’s no other way to explain how much a grown man must have failed as a person if such a warrior of a boy could believe that his coach would be less proud of him if he were gay.
David hates himself for not being better than his dad. That’s the job of sons.